Question

Topic: Strategy

Services Competition Infos

Posted by Anonymous on 10/22/2008 at 11:31 PM ET 125 Points
so I have to do this competition research for a service company in a developping country (actually consulting, market entry help etc) and the main things we want to learn are

1) how muh do our competitors charge for a their services
2) what are their target clients
3) who are their clients
4) how did they get these clients
5) what are their market share

So what I'd like to know is what do you think about the ways to achieve this and do you have any suggestions to go around it and sggestions to the few ways I found to do it...

of course some info can be gathered on the internet like for the clients but depending on the companies, there is not much info...

I could only come up with "sneakey" ways for now, and you would have to act "smart" in these situations.

Here is a very short listing of the ways I thought about to achieve this goal, because I could not come up with other ways...

- telephone and pretend to be a potential client
- phone their past clients
- interviews in some kind of event (very rare but could find one or two)
- false job inquiry
- get in contact with some of their partners (a lot of companies rely to partners to offer some of their services)
- send a survey to our past clients and ask them why they chose us and alike
- pretend to be a student making a research (actually I am so initial contact with e-mail from the institution would work)
- try some governmental agency to find annual turnarounds...


well this is it, thank you for your advices, may it be readings or concrete suggestions or informations
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by CarolBlaha on 10/24/2008 at 6:06 PM Accepted
    Do you want a good job or worry about what you call "sneaky". There is nothing sneaky about competitively shopping your competition.

    When I owned a restaurant I wanted to add box lunches and catering. I hired a marketing intern and we created a market survey. And he called the largest employers in the area.

    He asked "how much do you spend on..." What do you like best with your current supplier. What do you like least. And a miriad of other questions I have forgot.

    In catering, it was easy to get competitive info-- its on the web.

    End of the day-- the info was critical to my plan. Not only did I know the SWOT's, I knew the decision maker and how to create a niche no one touched yet.

    And it worked. I owned a 4 1/2 star restaurant - and my catering filled in all the highs and lows. More important, difference between profit and loss.

    Don't worry-- just do it.
  • Posted on 10/27/2008 at 5:35 AM Author
    yeah thanks
    I'll jus have to take the best way for each company I'm approaching depending on what kind of info I allready have on hand.
  • Posted on 11/4/2008 at 12:18 AM Accepted
    How about an industry report. The premise being that you are developing a competitive framework for the industry which would provide a macro and micro outlook. What you would probably achieve is something far more substantial and useful than what you set out to achieve.
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